Defenseman No. 9 - Xavier Neal Page 0,70
use. The fact Crash was missing from the event was something that was hard to ignore and even harder to pretend I wasn’t disappointed about, but I understood.
He had a prior obligation.
An audition for a New York dance company looking for future choreographers to shape and train and launch their careers.
It was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing.
He wasn’t wrong when he, offhandedly, mentioned I’d have other birthdays but that he was unlikely to get another chance at something like this.
I agreed – even if everything inside was screaming to put up a bigger fight – and simply said we could celebrate later in the day when his schedule permitted, which is why I’m here, playing D.J. while he teaches his free Sparkling Stella class, a dance fitness session for the university staff two nights a week prior to the fall semester starting to help them “get their groove back”.
Whether it’s the groove for teaching or the groove for their bedrooms – like the original Stella the class is named after – is information I’m okay never having.
His love of all things Angela Basset – something he swears he inherited from his mother – never fails to make me smile.
She’s a beautiful older woman.
She was sexy in her younger days.
And, I do appreciate having her movies as a counter option for couch day choices.
There’s only so many dance movies I can calmly sit through or hear in the background while cooking.
“You got this Professor Kane!” Crash encourages from beside the stout redhead. “Listen to Shakira in the song! Hips don’t lie!” She giggles some despite the fact she’s wheezing and keeps working her lower half to try to match his. “Hips never lie.”
His damn sure don’t.
He’s a living testament to the old theory about being a good dancer means you’re good in the sack.
The world knows Crash is a really fucking fantastic dancer.
It makes me grateful that I’m the first and only one to know how fucking amazing he is when being the one to give instead of receive.
“Loving that energy, Mrs. Watkins!” My boyfriend announces as he moves up to the next row. “Really get those shoulders into it.” He joins her in her shimmying pursuit, something most women would claim is difficult without anything up top to jiggle, but the love of my life easily proves otherwise. “Touch those beats, babe!”
I helplessly grin at the way he works the room.
He’s like a classic page of poetry.
Easy to enjoy.
Even easier to get lost in.
It’s as though he only exists to make you feel.
It’s as though he believes his sole purpose is to connect you to that part of yourself you spend time ignoring.
What’s wild is, Crash effortlessly helps people see the sparkle in themselves, but whenever it’s time to turn that mirror around, we’re talking really turn it around for more than a shallow glance, he panics like he can’t stand what’s being reflected. It’s as though he’s incapable of seeing how fucking wonderful he is.
He fails to see how beautiful his gray eyes are – with or without mascara to help make them pop.
He brushes off the compliments about how beautiful his body looks in date night shirts.
He’s even begun to dismiss my supportive dance-related comments regarding how incredible his flexibility is becoming or how impressive it is that his head spin timing has increased.
Those things are not my way of saying he’s perfect.
I know he’s not.
Wiping eyeshadow dust off my bar counter before making us dinner and letting him go through my phone because something in his overactive brain has convinced him I’m crushing on someone else, proves he isn’t.
But, his flaws don’t make him less loveable to me.
They make him more so.
I’ve known the good, the bad, and the ugly for over a decade and never ran away because of it.
When will he get it through his head that no matter how things get better or worse or more grotesque that I’ll still be here to love him and support him and build him up, is information I find myself constantly wishing I had, unlike the groove question.
“Work. It. Woman!” Crash claps at the svelte white-haired female in the front row. “Loving this arm placement.” He thrusts his up, so they are clasped above his head. “See if you can get a little more ab movement into those pops.” The two energetically gyrate in tandem to which he joyfully says, “That’s it! You’re fabulous Linette!”
Not bad at all for a woman knocking on 70’s door.
He flashes her